Dubbed "the most beautiful daughter of the Puyuma tribe," the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Aboriginal candidate, Chen Ying (陳瑩), undertakes a historic task in potentially becoming the first-ever Aboriginal candidate to hold a seat in the legislature under the DPP banner -- with high expectations from her father, Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) Chairman Chen Chien-nien (陳建年).
Having obtained her master's degree in music at the University of Illinois two years ago, Chen Ying, 32, did not come back to Taiwan until this past June, when the DPP enlisted her to run in the legislative elections in her hometown constituency of Taitung County.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, LIBERTY TIMES
Although her father holds a position in government, Chen has little experience in politics and her academic background in music is almost irrelevant to the political task at hand. To offset her lack of experience, Chen appealed to voters' sense of justice and highlighted her enthusiasm to be a competent legislator, stressing that she is not totally unfamiliar with political activities.
"When I was a child, I was the kind of girl who liked to defend my friends against injustices," Chen said. "My Aboriginal background also gave me a deep experience of how unjust my people have been treated. I know what that feels like and it strengthens my resolution to fight for my people."
Chen also pointed out that the image of Aboriginal people has been distorted by certain Aboriginal lawmakers in the opposition, who encouraged them to protest after Vice President Annette Lu's controversial comments about Aboriginal people following a tropical storm this summer, which Chen thought it was not their nature.
She also stressed that younger generation Aboriginals should have as great a chance to enter the legislature, as the Han people.
Chen also knows her mission in the upcoming legislative election: to be the first-ever DPP Aboriginal legislator.
In the past, Taiwan's Aboriginal people have had strong ties to the KMT and chieftains were often KMT vote captains. Voting for KMT candidates has been somewhat of a tradition of Aboriginal people.
Even her father, Chen Chien-nien, was a legislator-at-large for the KMT before he took over as CIP chairman in 2002, which forced him to withdraw from the party. Not until the Kaohsiung City councilor by-election this past July did an Aboriginal candidate -- Ateng Ingay (俄鄧殷艾) -- win a position in office under the DPP banner.
Gaining the support and trust of the Aboriginal people has been one of the DPP's priorities in the legislative elections.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the